By Angela Tooley

With the recent passing of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, I have been reflecting on his multiple legacies.

Media coverage has celebrated him as

• a champion of the first amendment,
• a liberator “from the shackles of repressive thinking”
• a hero with “a sense of social responsibility”
• being “one of the world’s most influential icons.”

As you might expect I think that is repulsively absurd.

I agree with coverage that accurately describes Hefner as a

“grinning pimp… taking pleasure at the expense of the vulnerable, poor and not-yet-born.” Hefner left a legacy that made “our culture coarser and crueller.”

Unfortunately, there is a more personal legacy. If you know Eric’s story of his pornography struggle then you know that as a young teenager he discovered a stash of porn magazines that belonged to his dad. Eric has shared how this discovery was a huge enticement to seek out more pornography in his youth.

Decades later as Eric and I cleaned out his parents closet I found this same stack of magazines just as Eric had described where he found them.

What I felt that day was pure rage!

• for what happened to Eric,
• for how that would go on to hurt our marriage,
• For how that would hurt me, and
• for the countless others who likewise suffer from the legacy of what Hefner and others like him created.

Noble Choices exists to create another legacy.

• We speak the truth about pornography and sexual addiction.
• We seek to educate all ages about this insidious trap.
• We minister to those who struggle and those who have been hurt.

We hope and pray that our legacy will be of recovery and prevention from sexual addiction in all its awful forms. If your family, church or school has a need to address then we are ready to help. Please contact us and let us be a resource for you.

“Nothing makes me happier than to hear that my children live in the truth.” 3 John 1:4 (GNT)

Douthat, R. (2017, September 30). Speaking Ill of Hugh Hefner. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/opinion/hugh-hefner.html

Ellis, J. (2017, October 5). Hugh Hefner Was More Than a Playboy, Promoting Equality and Free Speech. Retrieved from Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/more-playboy-hugh-hefners-driving-inspiration-676825

By Eric Tooley

What are our biggest worries regarding our kids?

A recent study of over 2,000 American adults revealed the following list:

• Childhood obesity
• Smoking
• Drug abuse
• Bullying
• Stress
• Alcohol abuse
• Internet safety
• Child abuse and neglect
• Teen pregnancy
• Not enough physical activity

Very good list. Several of them are main focuses of our work at Noble Choices.

What do these worries all have in common?

The need for our children to say, “No.”

Do you teach your children to say, “no”?

Many parents actually do the opposite. They will respond to their child’s “no” with hurt, withdrawal, guilt, anger, threats, and punishment.

Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend offer the following examples of parents not allowing their children to say “no.”

• “Mommy needs to hold you now.”
• “How can you say ‘no’ to your parents who love you?”
• “Don’t talk back to me.”
• “Someday you’ll feel sorry for hurting your parents’ feelings like that.”

Ask your self the following:

• Do you allow your child to disagree with you?
• When your child wants distance or to play something else, do you allow it?
• If your child argues about bedtime, do you listen, consider, and even change your mind occasionally?
• Even if you enforce the bedtime, do you do it without withdrawing love?
• If your child doesn’t want to give affection, do you force it?

How can we expect our teens to say no to smoking, drugs, alcohol, pornography, or teen sex if we haven’t allowed them to say no to anything else while growing up?

However, if you teach them it is safe to say “no” and allow them to practice it, they will have ten years of practice before hitting their teen years.

Don’t be a NO NO parent. Be a KNOW NO parent.

Cloud, D. H., & Townsend, D. (1992). Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No, To Take Control of Your Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. (2014, August 11). School violence, gun-related injuries in top 10 child health concerns in U.S. Retrieved from National Poll on Children’s Health: http://mottnpch.org/sites/default/files/documents/081114_top10.pdf

As a teenage boy, I would talk about how far I got with a girl with the terms, first base (kissing), second base (touching above the waist), third base (touching below the waist), and home run (sex). Even as I got married I considered this the four stages of intimacy.

Boy was I wrong.

Desmond Morris discovered twelve stages of intimacy. Couples who followed these stages developed a deeper bond by spending time at each stage. Couples who rushed through or even skipped stages didn’t have as strong a bond and were more likely to divorce.

Deep down teens want a meaningful marriage that doesn’t end in divorce. We can help them by teaching them the Twelve Stages of Intimacy and the importance of spending time at each step.

1. Eye to body. You notice the person. You are interested.

2. Eye to eye. Your eyes meet. You notice each other. You are interested in each other.

3. Voice to voice. You talk. You call. You text. You email. This should be a pretty long stage. You start emotionally bonding.

4. Hand to hand. You hold hands. It may be accidental touch that is kept in contact or deliberate. You are special.

5. Hand to shoulder. You put your arm around their shoulder. This publicizes your relationship.

6. Hand to waist. Your arms around each other’s waist. You know this person about as well as you know your best friend, and you like what you know.

7. Face to face. You hug and kiss. You start physically bonding which is an extension of the emotional bond you have taken time to establish.

8. Hand to head. You run your fingers through their hair. They cradle your face. You stroke their face. This shows a deepening trust.

The following steps are best saved for marriage.

9. Hand to body. This is what I called second base as teen. For obvious reasons, the following steps progress rapidly once started.
10. Mouth to body.
11. Touching below the waist. Third base.
12. Intercourse. Home run especially if you have taken the time bond at the previous 11 steps.

Morris, D. (1971). Intimate Behaviour: A Zoologist’s Classic Study of Human Intimacy. New York: Kodansha America, Inc.

The Super Bowl is one of the few distinctively American events that unites us as a culture. A majority of us will watch this event.